The Choices You Make

We were sitting with a board chair yesterday who was telling us about a summer fundraising picnic his group was sponsoring – everything was donated except for a few incidental costs, resulting in a $50 admission price which would net out at $45 per person to help the organization’s bottom line.

At a 200-person projected capacity, that was starting to add up to some real dough.

The choice?

The organization was planning to serve beer and burgers, but part of its constituency (including a few of its board members) consists of Muslims who don’t drink – or eat non-Halal meat.

The crux of the choice? The beer (and the burgers) had been offered as a donation, thereby increasing the net…and wasn’t that the board’s primary job? To raise money?

But what about the message that gave – that the Muslim community wasn’t welcome?

(Because while there would be some Halal-meat off to the side, the message surely was that the Muslim families were a secondary component, not the main audience, for this event.)

What was most important in the long run?

And – could the organization afford to make a long-term choice with less short-term monetary return? In this day and age?

Or turning that question around – could the organization afford to make a short-term decision that would work against its long term future?